Chapter 158: Chapter 158 - Bloaters
"Was that..." she trailed off, still twisted in her seat.
She looked back again.
"Was that a hunter?" she asked.
The pale creature hadn’t chased. It stayed on top of the overturned car, still working at the metal as if it didn’t care about them.
Marybeth’s voice came from the back. "Yes...fuck."
She turned forward fast and scanned the map again. Most alternate roads branched deeper into the cities marked red. Tighter streets. More blind corners.
"Malcolm," she said, "maybe if we take the next turn—"
"No," he cut in.
His jaw was tight.
"We’re going back to the nuclear."
"But—"
Marybeth leaned forward slightly. "That’s better."
Iyisha looked at her through the mirror.
Marybeth’s face had gone pale.
"I heard they can call for walkers and twitchers. The nuclear will be safer," Marybeth added.
Malcolm shook his head once.
"They can’t call," he said. "But noise is noise. And they follow it."
Iyisha opened her mouth to argue.
Wouldn’t it be better to keep moving?
Then she remembered the overturned car. The broken windows. The mass of bodies piling in.
She pressed her lips together.
Malcolm turned the wheel sharply and accelerated back the way they came.
They re-entered the nuclear grounds within minutes.
"Get the weapons," Malcolm said as he braked near the same entrance.
He was already moving before the engine fully died.
He grabbed the duffel from the back and slung it over his shoulder, handing Iyisha extra magazines as he passed her.
Her hands fumbled slightly as she tucked the ammo into her vest.
He was moving fast.
Too fast.
Marybeth was out of the car first, running toward the door.
Iyisha jumped out and followed, boots hitting concrete hard. Malcolm was right behind her.
They sprinted inside as if something was right at their backs.
Iyisha flicked on her flashlight the second they crossed the threshold.
The room wasn’t completely dark. Light filtered through high windows. But the corners were thick with shadow.
"Why?" she asked, breath uneven. "Why are we running?"
Malcolm dropped a heavy plank across the interior handles of the door and wedged it tight before scanning the room.
The entrance looked the same as before. Concrete walls. Stacked chairs. Ash circle on the floor.
"Hunters hunt," he said.
He didn’t explain further.
He was already moving toward the inner door.
"Deeper," he said.
They followed.
The next room was smaller. Office space. Desks overturned. Papers scattered. It was darker here, fewer windows, shadows thick along the walls.
"Did it even see us?" Iyisha asked quietly.
Her flashlight beam shook slightly as she swept it across the corners.
Malcolm moved first.
Iyisha followed. Marybeth behind her.
They passed through another room and then into a hallway so dark the only light came from their flashlights. The beams cut narrow tunnels through the black.
The smell hit her.
Hard.
She almost gagged.
Outside smelled bad. Rot. Open flesh. Moving bodies in heat.
This was worse.
Thicker. Heavier. It coated the inside of her nose and throat. She clamped her hand over her mouth but she could still taste it. Bitter. Sweet. Wrong.
Behind her, Marybeth made a choking sound and turned her head. Iyisha heard her retch.
Iyisha pinched her nose and breathed through her mouth.
It didn’t help.
It felt like the air itself was rotting.
"Careful," Marybeth said between breaths. "I think the bloaters are close."
Iyisha swung her flashlight toward her instinctively.
Marybeth squinted and shielded her eyes.
"Sorry," Iyisha muttered, angling the beam down.
"Don’t touch anything," Marybeth said. "Or we die."
Iyisha nodded.
They kept walking.
The hallway stretched long and narrow. Office doors lined both sides, some hanging open. The floor was stained in dark patches she didn’t want to look at too closely.
"I thought they couldn’t move," Iyisha said quietly.
Marybeth’s head bobbed once.
"They can’t," she answered. "But they release spores."
"Spores?" Iyisha asked.
"You pierce enough, they release pores. You breathe them in, you’re infected," Marybeth said, meeting her eyes in the dim light.
Iyisha swallowed.
Her grip tightened on her gun as she swept the beam ahead.
The smell grew stronger with every step.
Malcolm stopped at a heavy steel door set into the hallway wall.
It was thicker than the office ones. Industrial. Painted gray, paint flaking at the edges. A faded radiation symbol was stenciled across the center, half scratched off. A wheel lock sat in the middle like something from a submarine hatch.
He grabbed the handle and pushed.
It didn’t move.
He tried the wheel, muscles tightening in his forearm as he turned it.
Locked.
They moved to the next door. Same kind. Same result.
The third door was lighter. No wheel. Just a reinforced metal slab with a narrow wired glass panel cracked at the corner.
Malcolm pushed.
It gave.
The smell hit her full force.
Iyisha bent forward and vomited onto the concrete before she could stop herself.
"Shhh," Marybeth hissed quickly.
Iyisha wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, breathing hard.
The air inside was worse. Much worse. Thick and damp, as if the rot had been sealed in for months.
She lifted her flashlight.
The beam landed on the floor first.
She froze.
It looked like skin.
Pale layers spread across the concrete, fused and uneven, as if something melted and hardened in place.
Her hand trembled as she raised the light higher.
She gasped.
Her knees almost gave out and she stumbled backward into Malcolm. His hand caught her instantly, steadying her by the waist.
In front of them, the room was filled with it.
Flesh.
Masses of swollen, merged bodies fused together into a single mound. Black veins pulsed faintly under stretched, grayish skin. Sections twitched in slow, irregular spasms.
Three heads protruded from one side of the mass. Bloated beyond recognition. One flattened against another, faces barely distinguishable, mouths open, teeth exposed. Eyes sealed shut or sunken.
The whole thing looked wet.
Alive.
Iyisha swallowed hard as bile rose again in her throat.
Her fingers clutched Malcolm’s arm, gripping tight until her knuckles paled. She forced herself upright.
"Are these the bloaters?" she whispered.
"Yes," Marybeth said quietly.
Malcolm gently removed Iyisha’s hand from his arm.
"We needed to go deeper," he said.
Iyisha hesitated.
The mass didn’t chase. It didn’t crawl toward them. But the faint pulsing under the skin and the smell alone told her it didn’t need to move to be dangerous.
She bit her lip and stepped carefully along the wall, keeping as much distance as she could from the mound. She angled her body away, avoiding even brushing against it.
They slipped past the room’s corner and continued deeper into the plant.
